U.S. scientists have developed a method of incorporating solar energy into natural gas based electricity generation to produce a richer, more efficient fuel.
Engineers from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory say power plants equipped with their device would use 20 percent less natural gas to produce electricity and also produce less carbon dioxide emissions.
The system uses concentrated solar power (CSP) technology to drive a chemical reaction, converting natural gas into an energy-rich mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen called syngas.
A parabolic mirrored dish focuses sunlight and heats natural gas as it flows through a chemical reactor, where a catalyst separates the gas into syngas. This energy-dense fuel enables a gas-fired plant to run more efficiently.
“Our system will enable power plants to use less natural gas to produce the same amount of electricity they already make,” said PNNL engineer Bob Wegeng, who is leading the project.
The PNNL team say that by installing these devices, gas plants will become hybrid solar energy plants, an essential step towards lowering carbon emissions as America increasingly relies on natural gas for electricity generation.
Work is progressing on making the system more affordable and easier to mass-produce. The device itself is small, only four feet long and two feet wide. A 500 megawatt facility would need roughly 3,000 dishes to produce the amount of syngas required to power the plant during daylight hours.
In order to compete with current fossil-fuel-powered generation, the PNNL team aims to produce a system that would enable a gas plant using the solar hybrid dishes to produce electricity at six cents per kilowatt hour.
According to the PNNL, the syngas produced by its solar-driven system can also be used to make synthetic crude oil, which can be refined into diesel and gasoline.
The project has received $4.3 million in combined funding from the DOE’s SunShot Initiative and SolarThermoChemical LLC, which holds the rights to manufacture and sell the technology.
